President too slow to act

Posted
April 04, 2013 23:09:00

As US President Barack Obama is being criticised for not acting quickly enough after the Sandy Hook shooting he has travelled to Colorado to highlight its successful crackdown on guns and gain public support for restrictions.

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: More than three months after the Sandy Hook shooting, the US President is making a last ditch push to revive his foundering gun reforms. Barack Obama travelled to Colorado to draw attention to that state's successful crackdown on guns and to harness public opinion to pressure Congress as it prepares to consider national gun restrictions. North America correspondent Jane Cowan reports.

JANE COWAN, REPORTER: When all else fails, head west. Barack Obama left Washington, where his gun reforms appear to be dying a slow death, for the Rocky Mountain State of Colorado. Here, in a place with a strong history of gun ownership and where the frontier mentality remains strong, the Governor has still managed to recently sign into law measures requiring background checks on all gun buyers and limiting the size of ammunition clips.

BARACK OBAMA, US PRESIDENT: I've come to Denver today in particular because Colorado is proving a model of what's possible. Every day that we wait to do something about it, even more of our fellow citizens are stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun. Now the good news is Colorado has already chosen to do something about it.

(Applause from audience)

JANE COWAN: In Colorado, James Holmes, the man accused of opening fire during a late-night screening of a Batman movie last July, is still making his way through the courts.

Barack Obama spoke at the Denver Police Academy, a few kilometres from the scene of the Aurora cinema massacre.

BARACK OBAMA: Most gun owners, more than 80 per cent, agree this makes sense. More than 70 per cent of NRA members agree. 90 per cent of the American people agree. So, there's no reason we can't do this unless politics is getting in the way.

JANE COWAN: Colorado's laws passed despite divisions within the local law enforcement community. While police chiefs have supported tougher gun control, the county sheriffs haven't. More than a dozen of them gathered to protest the President's visit and his push for similar laws across the country.

TERRY MAKETA, COLORADO SHERIFF: This is about taking a world full of predators, a world full of wolves and creating more sheep to defeat the wolves. Now I stole that line from a very intelligent individual, 'cause I'm not that smart, but I think it says exactly what's happening. Let's create more sheep to try to control the predator that takes our sheep. And it warms my heart to look out right here, right now and see enough people that say, "I will not be a sheep."

JANE COWAN: But the states are managing to overcome the opposition. In Connecticut, where the loss of 20 children in December's bloodshed is still raw, the legislature has agreed on what's being called the most comprehensive package of gun reforms America has ever seen. The measures include universal background checks, limiting magazines to no more than 10 rounds, tougher penalties for violations of gun laws and a first-in-the-nation dangerous weapon offender registry. It's something that's eluded Barack Obama at the federal level, though not for want of trying.

BARACK OBAMA (Dec. 19, 2012): To come up with a set of concrete proposals no later than January, proposals that I then intend to push without delay.

(Jan. 16, 2013): If there's even one life that can be saved, then we've got an obligation to try.

(Mar. 28, 2013): I haven't forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we've forgotten.

JANE COWAN: But by most accounts, this is a struggle the powerful gun lobby has already won. The NRA now presenting itself as the guardian of school safety, with plans to arm at least one staff member in every American school.

???: That can reduce the response time, it will save lives.

JANE COWAN: Plans for a new assault weapon ban and a ban on high capacity magazines are history. And even prospects for the introduction of meaningful background checks now look bleak, despite polls showing the vast majority of Americans favour the move.

It tells you something about the quality of the national debate that this is the current controversy.

Playing off the off-used phrase of the actor and former NRA president Charlton Heston, Jim Carrey has caused a stir by mocking gun advocates.

The spoof unleashed this tirade on Fox News:

GREG GUTFIELD, FOX NEWS PERSONALITY: He is probably the most pathetic tool on the face of the Earth and I hope his career is dead and I hope he ends up sleeping in a car the way his life began. This video only made me want to go out and buy a gun. He thinks this is biting satire, going after rural America and a dead man.

JANE COWAN: The outburst prompted Jim Carrey to hit back with his own statement, likening Fox News to a last resort for "kind-sorta-almost journalists", a "media colostomy bag that needs to be emptied".

As the life ebbs from gun reform, the violence is the constant backing track. There was another shooting in an office block in Florida today, the attacks so frequent they often don't even make news.

One of Barack Obama's problems has been his failure to resolve the fact that it's not just his Republican opponents standing in the way of gun reform. Some on his own side are in a tough spot as well, Democrats facing tight re-election fights next year in conservative heartland states where the gun culture is strong.